UN May Deploy Troops During Syria Ceasefire

With just three days left before Eid al-Adha, it still isn’t clear if the proposed Syria ceasefire will happen or not. If it does, however, UN officials say they are considering deploying troops to the nation to try to keep it going.

UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has been pushing a brief pause for the multi-day Muslim holiday in hopes that it would give the assorted rebel factions and the regime an opportunity to consider negotiations. Much of the international community is behind the effort but while both regime and rebels have given lip-service to the idea, neither has committed yet.

UN Peacekeeping Chief Herve Ladsous says that his department is considering several possible options in the event a sustained ceasefire emerges, though he said the exact size of any military deployments is yet to be determined.

During the last ceasefire, the UN sent a handful of “monitors,” and while fighting was often down in the parts of the country where the monitors happened to be, the ceasefire eventually crumbled, with rebel factions disavowing the deal and beginning a major new offensive.